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Landover, MD-Giant Food is implementing a multiyear repositioning strategy in which it will open eight new stores and close seven in the DC metro area this year, as well as remodel several others.

Earlier this year, Giant opened its first new prototype store, which features expanded perishables aisles, in Millville, DE. It plans to open another prototype store in the Baltimore-Washington area in Dunkirk, MD on Aug. 25, 2006. By the end of 2006, Giant will have opened new stores in Bowie, Chevy Chase and Urbana, MD, and in Haymarket and Ryan Park, VA. It will also have remodeled stores in Bear, DE, Easton and Elkridge, MD, and Alexandria, Gainesville, and Woodbridge, VA. It has already remodeled its Van Ness store in the District of Columbia.

Giant will also close several stores in 2006. These are the Someplace Special store in McLean, VA, the Giant Drug store in Salisbury, MD, and Giant supermarkets in Bowie (Laurel-Bowie Road), Edgewood, Salisbury (North Salisbury Boulevard), and Wilde Lake-Columbia, MD, and Annandale, VA. "These are smaller, outdated stores for which new investment was not a practical alternative," Bill Holmes, executive vice president and general manager of Giant, says in a statement.